(Note: Read title to the tune of the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love!”)
Warren Beatty and I were out on the Mill Creek trail one recent morning. No, not the Warren Beatty who just screwed up the Oscars. Warren Beatty the miniature schnauzer who runs my life because it just makes sense since he is so much smarter than me. That’s what he says anyway.
It was a beautiful morning, you know those mornings right now, when the air is so clean and clear, the sun is shining not yet beating down, those mornings when spring is pretty much running things, Jeeps descending upon us or not? We were walking along. Correction: Warren Beatty was walking me along.
And we had the pleasure of “meeting” (sniffing, wagging at, jumping around, etc.) several other dogs. All sizes and shapes, most friendly and curious. It was a bit like a dog buffet.
The dogs would greet each other while their personal assistants (we humans attached to them by leashes) chatted. Occasionally we would do the “leash dance” and try not to get tripped up and fall on top of each other.
We never inquired as to each other’s names; we wanted to know what the other dog’s name was. We volunteered without being asked the fascinating facts about our dogs (“Minnie is a rescue dog from Argentina,” “Terrance is the father of new puppies,” “Samantha hates thunderstorms and men wearing bandannas.”)
I realized later that what was really great about the whole thing is that we would meet, bond over he-or-she-who-runs-your-life, and just accept the other person immediately. At dog rather than face value. We didn’t care how they voted, where they lived or what they were up to in the rest of their life. They had a dog. They were in the club.
The dog club is actually an international organization. I know this because sometimes Warren and I will be walking around downtown and some French or English person or somebody from Idaho will swoop down and comment on how cute he is (the surefire, immediate way to have another person think of you as a close personal friend) and say how much they miss their dog back home and wonder if he will allow himself to be petted. I understand completely. They just need a dog fix.
It’s the same when I’m away and there is no Warren Beatty; no sweet furry bundle to cuddle up to, no one to ignore me when I ask him to do or not do something or turn his head away when I try to take his picture, and I start to miss him. I’m walking down a street somewhere and I see a little furry dog person and (depending on my language skills) I comment on what a cute dog this is, I tell the “story of Warren Beatty back in Moab, Utah,” and request pat privileges which are always given. They understand completely. I just need a dog fix.
With all the hyper-partisan-political “stuff” (the family-friendly newspaper word for it) going on, I believe I have just come up with the way to solve it all! Just disappear all the division like in a New York minute by creating the new Doglitical party! Its only dogma will be that you have a dog or love and adore dogs and wish more than anything you could have one. No one will dog the other person about anything. Its international greeting will be a wagging tail, its seal of approval a wet nose. Whaddaya say?
In closing, Doglitical Correctness demands that I add that there is not a thing wrong with cats. Really. I don’t want this paper to start getting letters claiming that I have dissed cats by O.T. D., Overly Talking about Dogs. Cats are great! Yea cats! But they’re even bossier than dogs.
E. J. Gore is an author, screenwriter and personal assistant to Warren Beatty Gore-Davis.
